Earlier this week, however, I took a moment to marvel at the sheer range and variety of products Lovehoney stocks - thousands upon thousands of dildos, butt plugs and cock rings - and it got me thinking about the human urge to seek sexual pleasure. The amount of technical expertise and hours of planning that go into developing each bullet vibrator begs the question - do orgasms, rather than money, make the world go round?

Think about it. We can trace porn back 35,000 years, while the wheel made its first appearance about 6,000 years ago, and money didn’t come into common use until about 2,500 years ago. Clearly, our ancestors had similarly one-track minds.

With the advances in sex toy technology (the Violet Wand comes to mind), it’s easy to forget that our generation aren’t the first to use sex toys - not by a long shot!

Believe it or not, scientists believe that sex toys have existed since the Ice Ages! Eight inch long stone objects found in Germany are believed to have been used as long as 28,000 years ago to stimulate our ice age ancestors. That’s right - a dildo made of stone.

The oldest sculpted phallus is the considered to be the four inch dildo found in Sweden in 2011. Carved from stag antler, this mesolithic relic is thought be the oldest purposefully made dildo in the world.

Dildos made of stone and antler, what were our predecessors thinking? Well, it gets worse, as there is evidence that the ancient Greeks used dildos made of wood (bear in mind that this was before the days of sandpaper) and even leather. Unsurprisingly, it was around this time that lubricant was first used - but without the luxury of Liquid Silk or KY Jelly, they had to improvise, using olive oil instead.

Almost 2,000 years later, men caught up and began to use cock rings. The early Chinese penis rings were made of goat eyelids, but soon progressed to using other materials including jade, leather and beads. It would appear that these early examples were worn for decoration as much as the erection-hardening properties.

The earliest vibrator was built in 1869 as a cure for women’s hysteria - the steam powered “Manipulator” was welcomed by doctors of the day, who had been “relieving” patients daily by stimulating the clitoris with their fingers. Tiring work, indeed!

Clitoral vibrators soon became smaller and more effective, and by 1905 hand-held vibrators could be purchased for the home. By 1918, vibrators were widely available as a “home appliance” to cure headaches, asthma and even “fading beauty”.

Such was their popularity, electric vibrators appeared in the Sears Catalogue long before other household items - 10 years before the electric iron and 9 years before the electric vacuum cleaner.

It’s good to know householders had their priorities straight! Almost a century on, vibrators have gotten smaller, quieter and more powerful. Let’s thank our lucky stars we don’t have to visit the doctor every time we want an orgasm.

While things have been inserted into the anus for hundreds of years, it’s only in the past century that butt plugs emerged in their current form. They were originally marketed as “Rectal Dilators” to help with digestive issues. Only available for purchase on prescription, they were used to cure hemorrhoids and other rectal issues. It is clear, however, that they were also used for pleasure - at least you don’t need a prescription to buy anal sex toys now!

Thankfully, since the early days of sex toys, our attitudes towards sex and masturbation have changed dramatically. The 1960s saw a revival in sex for pleasure and sex toys became widely available for the first time. We no longer need to kill a goat to procure a cock ring or get the permission from a doctor to engage in some self-love. The materials and techniques used to make toys have become safer and easier - no more antler dildos or olive oil lube, then.

Comments (6)

In truth, innovations in sex toys have mostly stagnated since the mid 1990's. I make a point of looking for new and interesting stuff, but there's not much out there.

There are a few interesting ones; the mk2 spank-o-matic is well engineered and has some crazy add-on options that you have to see to believe. Big thumbs up! And of course there are the f*cking machines everyone must have seen on the internet by now.

But whatever happened to the idea of computer-controlled sex toys? The technology has been around since the late 1980's but the only computer-controlled sex toy I am aware of is the RealTouch, which from what I've read was not very well constructed and the company has stopped selling the essential control box because of a licensing issue.

I know some people will point to so-called "programmable vibrators" and "internet enabled" vibrators, but they offer at best no more than 9 basic settings. Compare that to the spank-o-matic (yes it's real, no I am not making it up) I mentioned; it has an option to connect to a PC or laptop and program virtually infinite variations, so why can't mass-produced vibrators be plugged into a PC?

Current "high tech" vibrators have very crude electronics and most of them are constructed around unsuitable high-amplitude vibrator motors; low amplitude motors create a much deeper "bass" vibration which penetrates more deeply.

Love Honey IMO is probably in the top two best sex-toy stores in the UK, it's a very good webstore, but frankly like most other sex-toy stores, most of the toys are just plain bad and should be withdrawn from sale.

LoveHoney is my first stop for sex toys, but I've been waiting years and years and years for LoveHoney to sell something really worth buying. The last decent sex toy I found on LoveHoney was the Rends R1 + bullet vibrator. It's good, but imagine a vibrator plugged into a computer instead of that tiny little control unit.

WildThing:July 16, 2014 21:15

Great article! What an interesting history read! :)

Amanda:July 17, 2014 07:16

I loved reading this, soooo interesting!!

The funniest thing is, you say sex toys are widely used and have been used for a looooong time. My mum, however, doesn't know what a dildo is!!! >.<

Thank you for making my bus journey a lot more interesting!!

Kohitsuji:July 18, 2014 15:11

Thanks for sharing the long history, Nicole. I enjoyed reading it. Even shared it with my husband. He found it very interesting.

Lovehoney Nicole:July 28, 2014 16:05

Thanks for the great feedback guys! I find this kind of thing fascinating, but I'll never look at olive oil the same way again...

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